Easter is great. I love having the kids off school and spending time with them. My job means that I work only one day a week in the holidays and so things can pile up. At the moment, I’m juggling work, kids, housework, writing and the launch of a new project! All this leads to stress dreams! Hence todays post on ideas!

Some of my ideas for stories come from my very vivid dream life. Last night for instance I dreamt about being on a flight and landing at the destination and all the people had disappeared! There were only people left who had been in transit. Not much else happened and I don’t think there’s a deeper meaning than that sometimes I think the world would be easier without all the people messing it up!

Having these dreams though reminds me of why I love to write. Anything can happen! I love the blank page and the possibilities that lie ahead. As a writer I’m a planner. I thought I wasn’t until I tried to do Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month). When I took up the challenge, I spent the month before planning the whole novel. The twists and turns, character studies and I also wrote some back story. I then managed to write most of the novel in a month! This is the novel that’s going to be released later on this year. At some point in the near future I’ll share the cover design. All very exciting!

Going back to ideas though, it’s often in allowing your mind to wander that ideas come to fruition. The what ifs. Like my dream. What would happen if everyone disappeared? What happened to them? Was it a virus or some kind of nuclear weapon? Who would survive? Who would be in transit? This leads to my interesting google search history. My writing partner Sophie and I often joke that we must be on some MI5 watch list for our strange searches!

I’d love to hear some of your what ifs! Don’t worry I won’t steal them as I’ve got four stories on the go already. What if you pushed yourself and turned that what if into a short story or even a novel. Stranger things have happened!